


Ghosts in the Machine

by Obvious Reactionary (Mysterious_Prophetess)



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Human Experimentation, Memory Loss, Mind Digitalization, sort of a reimagining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 17:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20411272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysterious_Prophetess/pseuds/Obvious%20Reactionary
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a brilliant man who loved his son very much...-------------------------------------------------------------Experimental What-If? Origin Reimagining.





	Ghosts in the Machine

_“Once upon a time, there was a brilliant man who loved his son very much…”_

———————————————————————

Xavier Light had been born early into the world. It was planned, as he was being delivered early to help save his mother’s life. Sadly, this was not to be. An internal hemorrhage deprived Xavier Light of ever knowing his mother and widowing his father, Thomas Light.

Thomas Light could only watch helplessly as the love of his life slipped away, and the other light of his world was quickly shuttled to the NICU to ensure that he survived. It took a nurse dragging him to the waiting room for Thomas to get any sleep at all.

———————————————————————

Whenever he could, he visited Xavier. The premature infant was fighting for his life but he was indeed _fighting. _The funeral for Xavia—his wife who he named their son for—was small. She had very little in the way of family, and even fewer of them had ever really approved of Thomas marrying their little girl.

“Thomas?” He looked up to see it was just Albert. His lab partner and long time colleague.

“How’s Emily doing?”

“Zephyr is still not sleeping through the night, so she is exhausted same as me,” Albert said.

“How am I going to do this alone?” Thomas said.

“You don’t,” it was another of their colleagues. Dr. Cooper Fennimore and with him was Dr. Amelia Hart and Dr. Lara Kenneth. The entire robotics research team.

“Just as we’ve been helping Albert and Emily, we’ll help you too,” Dr. Fennimore said.

“I…..thank you.”

———————————————————————

“_He was lucky to have a village to help him raise his boy, and for a time all was well_….”

———————————————————————

Xavier, at ten, was a very active boy, despite his physical setbacks. Like his asthma or the fact he was prone to illnesses, or his general lack of strength and his poor vision but he enjoyed playing outside with Zephyr—even if the other boy lived up to his namesake. Zephyr Wily was the only other child who was frequently at the labs of Cain Robotics. Xavier tried to put on more speed but ended up wheezing. As he wheezed and fumbled for his inhaler, Zephyr ran to his side and made sure he helped him find it. Once in hand, Xavier shook it and took the deep breaths of the medicine and once he could breathe he looked up at Zephyr and nodded.

“You need to stop doing that or your dad’ll have both our heads,” Zephyr said as he led Xavier back towards the office buildings at a more sedate pace.

“Do I drag you down?” Xavier asked.

“Nah. I get it. You’ve got breathing problems. ’T’s not like you’re doing it on purpose or anything .Just happens. Why? Kids at that egghead school of yours giving you a hard time?” Xavier shrugged.

“Just show ‘em who’s the boss and move on, ok?” Zephyr said.

“Easy for you to say,” Xavier said, “How’s Walter doing?”

“I blame you but he’s an egghead and is super happy at his egghead school too,” Zephyr said.

“But your dad’s smart and you’re not dumb,” Xavier said.

“What’s the point in being smart when I’m so pretty?” Zephyr said with a sardonic laugh.

“Did….did Albert say that?”

“That and he wishes I was a girl because I’m pretty like mom and my looks are a waste on a boy,” Zephyr said, “Mom yelled at him, and they fought again, but it happens.”

“I don’t like fighting,” Xavier said.

“Eh, well, you only have your old man. What do the pair of you even have to fight about?” Xavier shrugged.

“I just think my old man likes to compete in everything and he likes to win. Doesn’t matter what or where or when, he just is ready to thrown down,” Zephyr said.

———————————————————————

“_But things never last. Nothing in the universe is constant. One day, whenever the worst seemed behind the man and his son, tragedy was there to greet them like an old friend….”_

———————————————————————

Xavier, now age twenty-one, was set to graduate college and work with his father in his and Albert’s newly established laboratory. Light-Wily Robotics. Wily had lost the chess game so Light was the first on the sign and the LLC. Xavier didn’t care either way, he was just ready to help his father and Albert make a difference in the world.

“How was basic training, Zephyr?” Xavier asked. Zephyr had enlisted in the Defense Force—in strict defiance to his father—and had ended up as a drill sergeant.

“Buncha wusses. I mean, yeah, humans are getting less and less involved with the battlefield but that doesn’t mean they can be doughy balls of lard!” Zephyr said.

“You could have worked with me,” Xavier said.

“X-man, I love you like a brother—like Walter—but me and my old man are water and **cesium**. Not only should we not mix, but when we do, bad things happen,” Zephyr said.

“You always say things like that,” Xavier said.

“That’s because all you ever see is fun-science Albert. You never saw the unbearable home Albert,” Zephyr said.

“…..Albert’s not fun to work with.”

“So imagine how the unbearable version of him is,” Zephyr said, “There’s a reason my Mom left and took Walter with her.”

“I—What’s that?” Xavier looked up.

“**_Run!_**”

———————————————————————

“_A great catastrophe fell upon the city where the man and his son lived, and it caused a great and terrible illness amongst those closest to the epicenter. The man’s son had been one such person…”_

———————————————————————

“Dr. Light, there is no easy way to put this. Your son’s prior illnesses made him so much more prone to damage from the radiation. There’s nothing we can do to save his life. The radiation will run its course in weeks.”

———————————————————————

“_Devastated by the news, the man sought comfort from his partner, who was suffering similarly. In their desperation these men sought to defy nature to save their sons’ lives or if they couldn’t do that they would preserve their essences….”_

———————————————————————

Albert looked over the documents he’d just been handed by a scientist who just a month ago, he’d have called an utter _quack_. However, now, needing such a scientist’s…._expertise_ he was forced to look over the notes with a more attentive eye.

“Are you certain this will work?” Thomas asked. _He was always a faster reader_. Dr. Cereba took her glasses off and polished them on her lab coat.

“I’ve done tests with mice, rabbits, dogs, and chimpanzees. It’s showed complete transference each and every time. However, I’ve never tried it with anything near as complex as the human brain, so I cannot be sure of how successful I can be,” she said.

“Thomas,” Albert said. Thomas sighed.

“We are willing to allow this procedure to go forward, but we will be helping.”

“I’d have expected nothing less from you two,” she said.

———————————————————————

“_They’d found their way to best nature but in playing god, they crossed a line they ought never have crossed for you see, while the man realized what he’d done fairly quickly was beyond the pale. His partner had gotten a taste for going beyond the bounds of ethics and found he liked it…..”_

———————————————————————

Thomas stared at the containment unit he had fashioned with help from Dr. Wily and Dr. Cereba. It almost looked like a mechanical brain, but it would be so much more than that. He glanced at Xavier, who’d lost consciousness shortly after being admitted to the hospital, and he had yet to regain it even as his organs were slowly failing and shutting down. Dr. Cereba had entered his hospital room in a hazmat suit to avoid any potential radioactive contamination of herself to place the electrodes on Xavier’s head and even made incisions when needed. Once he was wired up, she exited the room with the wires and connected them to the Extraction Device. The very name gave Thomas a chill in his soul. Albert stood by his side with his own containment unit. Dr. Cereba then carefully wired up Zephyr to the second device. She motioned for the men to place each unit in, and after a while she turned on both. As the units glowed more brightly, the EEG machines in both rooms began to record less and less activity until they just stopped. Shortly after that, the EKG machines flatlined. Dr. Cereba carefully and quickly disconnected her wires from the Extractors, made them look part of the EEG machines before she handed each device to Thomas and Albert, and motioned for them to run with her.

———————————————————————

“_Though the man had saved his son’s soul. He was now left with no body in which to place that soul, and no way of knowing how much of his son had been preserved until his son walked the Earth anew…”_

———————————————————————

“Cereba died last night,” Albert said as Thomas stared at the containment unit housing his son’s consciousness. It was in a safe location within the labs.

“How?”

“Radiation hotspot. She walked right into it and choked to death on her own blood,” Albert said.

“How unfortunate!” Thomas said.

“Yet now no one knows what it was we did. A bit of good to come out of this,” Albert said. Thomas snapped his head up to look at Albert aghast.

“How could you even say that!”

Albert held up his hands peaceably,

“Perhaps we should discuss plans to move forward?”

“Forward?”

“We cannot leave them like this. They need bodies,” Albert said.

“No machine processing unit can handle the full human brain’s data,” Thomas said.

“Then we build one.”

———————————————————————

“_The first puppet form the man and his partner made was no where near what it needed to be to allow their sons a physical body once again, but with each attempt, they seemed to get ever closer to their goals until they made a breakthrough….”_

———————————————————————

“Blues, clean that up,” Albert ordered. Blues looked right at Albert and said,

“No.” Thomas who had been working with delicate electronics nearby nearly dropped them.

“Repeat that?”

“I said no. I will not clean that up,” Blues said. The inflection was different than before. The attitude was different and he had disobeyed one of Asimov’s three laws—which had been programed into him.

“Blues, how did you deny Albert’s order?” Thomas asked.

“I just did,” Blues said.

———————————————————————

“A conscious robot. We made a robot that realized its own personality,” Thomas said.

“A defiant personality,” Wily said.

“We’re almost there, Albert.”

———————————————————————

“_The man and his partner moved ahead with the second version, after seeing there were numerous problems with the prototype shell. They created two machines this time. One to be a shell, and one to see how much further their attempts artificial life could go…”_

———————————————————————

“It looks like your son this time too,” Albert said gesturing at the masculine form.

“You lost that game of chess fair and square over the design of the Rock body. It was you who chose to make Roll a feminine design,” Thomas said. Albert huffed.

“We agreed, whenever we got this close I would test things out with Xavier before Zephyr,” Thomas said. Thomas carefully installed Xavier’s unit in the head of Rock. The wires carefully plugged before he carefully placed the top of the cranium in place, which sealed with a “hiss.” The synth hair would be installed with the synth skin. Thomas moved on to that phase as Albert continued the download processes for Roll’s personality matrix.

“All we can do is wait at this stage,” Thomas said once he finished with the synth skin on both bodies.

———————————————————————

“_Though hope had hurt him before, the man couldn’t help but allow hope to fill him as he waited for the day his son would truly enter the world again. However, the saying “be careful what you wish for” had never been before so cruelly demonstrated…”_

———————————————————————

When he opened his eyes, the processors took in the room he was in and information encoded in his subroutines aided him in identifying things. Like Roll—sister bot. Dr. Wily—co-creator. Dr. Light. Creator. It took a bit of digging to find his designation. DLN-001, Rock.

“Hello Dr. Light, how are you today?” He asked. His voice sounded off? Why would his voice sound off? He had only been active for approximately five minutes.

“Please state your name,” Dr. Wily said.

“Alright, Dr. Wily. I’m DLN-001, Rock.”

———————————————————————

“No memories,” Albert said. Thomas was heartbroken. Rock behaved like a younger Xavier had, and played liked the younger version of his son _wished_ he was able. Yet….nothing of Xavier remained.

“I won’t get my son back by using that….._thing!_” Albert yelled.

“Maybe we need to give it time,” Thomas said.

“Time! You think we have the luxury of time!”

———————————————————————

“_After the bitter disappointment, the man and his partner began to have a falling out. Soon, the partner betrayed everything the man had ever stood for….”_

———————————————————————

“Dr. Light, make me into a fighting robot,” Rock said. Thomas’s heart seized at those words. _No. You’re irreplaceable!_

“Why you?”

“Because someone has to and it might as well be me. I can’t let Dr. Wily get away with using my fellow robots like that,” Rock said. In that moment, Thomas saw Xavier as he had been. His resolve didn’t last long after that.

———————————————————————

“_Over the course of years, the former partner would lash out at the world and the man over and over until he did something that shocked the man to his core…”_

———————————————————————

Thomas was barely conscious after Forte or rather _Bass_ turned out to be Wily’s creation after all.The Wily bot was unlike any of his predecessors. More _human_.He stopped whenever he caught sight of an image.

“Who were they?” Bass demanded Thomas. In his quasi concussed state, Thomas was barely able to make out that it was a picture of Xavier and Zephyr on high school graduation.

“My and Wily’s sons,” Thomas said.

“Where are they? I know I’ve seen them!” Bass yelled. That struck Thomas mute. Bass left in a huff shortly after.

———————————————————————

“What is it you want this time, Tom,” Albert said with a sneer behind bars.

“You used Zephyr to make Bass.”

“You noticed. Good. I figured I’d use one good thing that came from lost memories: obedience. Never before in his existence, has that boy ever listened to a thing I told him!”

———————————————————————

“_For a while the pattern held, but as always, things change. Nothing is permanent….”_

———————————————————————

Thomas knew his time was running out, but there was one last gift he wanted to give his son: true freedom. The three laws within the body his son’s essence inhabited had actually inhibited him on multiple occasions in little ways that caused the consciousness inside the body and the programing to clash in painful ways. It was time to build the most realistic body he could manage. Working title “X” in honor of Zephyr’s nickname for Xavier. Rock’s mind was now too old for his body. _Had always been too old for his body…_

“What’re you working on?” Rock asked.

“Something new and revolutionary. It could change the world,” Dr. Light said.

“You always do that,” Rock said.

“I suppose I do, but this will directly affect you, whenever I’m done,” Dr. Light said.

“Really? How?”

“You’ll see.”

———————————————————————

Albert looked over the schematics Bass had stolen for him. He was starting to revert to his previous self’s rebellious ways. _With this body, I can start over and destroy Light and his son once and for all and restore my son to his proper glory._

———————————————————————

“_The man worked tirelessly for years, even as his former partner continued to plague the world, until the project was complete…”_

———————————————————————

“Rock, please, have a seat,” Dr. Light said. Rock nodded.

“Is everything alright, Dr. Light?” _Does he somehow know about my odd memory files?_

“Everything is fine. Why? Is there something I should be aware of?”

“I’ve been having odd memory files load without prompting sometimes,” Rock admitted.

“Odd how?”

“I’m smaller in them and you are younger,” Rock said.

“There is a reason. Those are not an anomaly, they’re memories. Your memories. It’s why I had to build something better for your mind,” Dr, Light said.

“My mind? But I have a personality matrix—.” Dr. Light gently cut him off.

“No. Roll does. You…are special, I have and always will be your father, Xavier.”

———————————————————————

“Dr. Light?” Roll searched the house high and low until she found Dr. Light in the basement with X’s capsule, sealed up tight.

“Where’s Rock?” She spotted Rock’s powered down form in the corner. She walked over and her sensors told her he was not internally there: datavoid. She focused on the capsule. Her logic processors leading her to only one conclusion,

“You put Rock in X? Why?” Roll asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“I can handle long stories. Start at the beginning,” Roll said. She had her hands on her hips. For some reason, this made Dr. Light give her a sort of sad smile,

“I do owe you that much.Very well: once upon a time, there was a brilliant man who loved his son very much…”

**Author's Note:**

> Ever have an idea just grab you and not let you go until you write it out?  
This was that sort of idea for me.
> 
> Is it original? Not really.  
Edit added 11/29/19-Just realized I borrowed a lot from _Astro Boy_ without realizing it despite liking _Astro Boy_ a lot.  
Was it experimental? For me at least. I've never really done a story where it was sort of being told like a fairy tale before.
> 
> I _knew_ Dr. Light was telling someone, but it wasn't until I got towards the end that I realized the only person who'd benefit from this being a story was Roll. Also, it gave her more of a role in this story.
> 
> Added 2/16/20:  
If you're not reading this fic on AO3 (or its affiliated ap) this fic has been stolen. 
> 
> Please do not support these thieving, skimming aps. Mostly because AO3 and its ap are _**free**_.


End file.
